


Awakening

by noctlis



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Sort of underlying gentiluna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 10:30:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17865605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noctlis/pseuds/noctlis
Summary: Day 3 - fate; the prophecy; the Astrals/Shiva; “We are not above consequences.” / adjectives: steadfast, disillusionedGentiana has only ever followed the path set before her but when it comes down to it... Maybe that isn't what she wants.





	Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the start of an AU of mine that I posted a very long thread about on my twitter [here](https://twitter.com/noctlis/status/1093303796598476800?s=19). I wanted to give a better idea of how it all begins and since it's Gentiana week, i figured it was the perfect time. Basically, Gentiana plays the most important role in this AU because she's the one who takes Noctis to all of messengers and helps him awaken them. So yeah I hope you'll enjoy this fic and also take a look at my thread (which took days to compile and hours to tweet out sjdkskdf)

Gentiana hears the door open but she doesn't open her eyes, and she doesn't move from where she's seated on the floor, her legs folded beneath her, hands clasped in her lap. She knows who the visitor is after all.

"Gentiana…" Lunafreya's voice is laced with concern when she speaks, the smallest of shivers seeping into her timbre. Understandable, seeing as the room is currently enshrouded in a mist of ice and snow.

"Yes, My Lady?" Gentiana replies quietly.

Lunafreya doesn't give her an answer right away, falling quiet once more, but Gentiana still feels her warm presence lingering, a stark contrast to the winter chill. A sigh, a shifting of her feet as she considers her words carefully. It makes Gentiana want to break out of her self imposed discipline and hold Lunafreya gently in her arms, to reassure her that everything is fine. But she can't and she won't, because perhaps… Perhaps everything is not fine in this moment. Her hands clench into fists.

"I am here, should you need anything," Lunafreya finally finishes. The real message she conveys, _I'm worried about you_ , is impossible for Gentiana to miss, as soft and sweet as Lunafreya is and has always been. And then Lunafreya is gone and the door clicks shut behind her.

In the Oracle's absence, silence envelops the room once more, a suffocating, muted quietthat swallows every sound into nothingness and leaves Gentiana completely alone with her thoughts. A swirling mess of unanswered questions and feelings she can't find the words to describe. She's lost somehow, like a boat adrift at sea in a storm of uncertainty and doubt, and the only way to make it back to shore is to slowly pick apart the pieces and lay them bare, until she can finally put this behind her and remember herself.

She really should know better, as a messenger to the Astrals. Nothing has changed- disregarding the abnormal shift in Gentiana's emotions- not her duties, nor their intended outcome, and once she can get everything under control, she can go right back to playing along, to accepting the role given to her ages past. That's why she's here, isolating herself, trapping herself in the frost she so deserves. Because of her momentary weakness, because she had accidentally allowed herself to want something.

Foolish.

But in the end, how could she have avoided it when she has watched over the Oracle since the beginning, has seen her unbridled kindness and the joy of her smile? Lunafreya: pure and full of hope, love, light. No, it was an inevitability, Gentiana wants to argue, that she should become attached. And that in and of itself is the problem.

The prophecy, the will of the gods, is final and thus the end of the Oracle and the True King accompany the conclusion to this revelation. She has always known this. It's why she has worked so hard to guide Lunafreya all this time, to prepare her to fulfill that which is required of her, to extinguish her own flame for the sake of others. A task Lunafreya is more than willing to complete. That just makes Gentiana feel worse, knowing it is her fault that Lunafreya openly accepts her death, knowing she has done nothing but lead Lunafreya right to the edge and all the remains is the final push. Lunafreya deserves better. And just like that, she's back to square one.

Gentiana sighs. This is going nowhere.

" _You are thinking yourself in circles._ "

Gentiana twitches. A sudden voice, invading the corners of her mind and reverberating in her skull, unfamiliar and strange, and definitely not her own or that of Shiva. She can't remember the last time someone used this method to communicate with her and it abruptly disrupts her train of thought, puts her on guard.

"Who are you?" she asks cautiously.

" _Whatever name you might have known me by has been lost to time_ ," comes the swift reply. _"Now, I am Garuda, emissary of the winds_ ."  
"... Another messenger." Curious.

" _And you, the messenger who has woven herself into the fate of the Oracle_."

Gentiana stiffens, ice creeping along her skin at the accusation. "I have done no such thing. The Oracle must travel the path to light and the messenger who walks beside her simply guides her, for the prophecy, for the sake of the world and the King."

" _Do you actually believe that?_ " Garuda counters. " _That you are impartial in the grander scheme of the cosmos?_ " A sound similar to laughter fills Gentiana's ears, shrill and high pitched like the squawk of a bird. " _That mindset will only bring you to ruin._ "

"Does the emissary of winds, a shadow cast away by history and locked in a cage of stone, truly wish to tell me that I am wrong?" As she speaks, she feels pin pricks like icicles, a tingling that travels down her spine and causes her to shiver, despite her usual adaptation to the frost of winter. It unnerves her.

" _Your words cannot wound me_ ," Garuda says, calmly, sharply, as if it is she who controls the cold and not Gentiana. " _At least I have walked my own path. I have been awakened, reborn anew by the King of Light. True and pure, he selflessly seeks only to help those in need. It is to him I owe my loyalty, not to a selfish prophecy and not to the Gods._ "

"How can you say that when it is the Gods who breathed life into you?"

Garuda laughs again, this time ruefully, her tone almost mocking. " _I owe them nothing. It is the Astrals themselves who cursed this land, who deemed me unworthy and tossed me aside. It is these childish fools who knew not how to solve their own problems and thus decided that the Oracle and the King should take on that burden. Two human beings, born to a fate chosen for them, that would never see them as individuals, but simply as the final piece of a cruel puzzle._ "

"You speak quite freely of the Astrals," Gentiana says quietly. She's shaking now, not shivering, her body filled with something like adrenaline.

" _Of course I do. They may be Gods, just as we may be messengers intended to serve them, but that does not absolve us of our sins. We are not above consequences_."

Consequences, Gentiana thinks. Yes, that is the word. To have let things get this far, to have doomed the Oracle and the King so that only in their deaths will they find salvation for their people, the same people who have fought all this time for them to live… She feels the ice slowly cracking, the mist lifting around her. In the back of her mind, a clearer picture is beginning to form beneath the melting frost.

"... It is my duty to lead the Oracle to her fate." A pointless statement from which Gentiana can already feel she is distancing herself, said only as a last resistance.

Garuda wastes no time in dispelling it. " _Duty is limiting, a mere pretense that only inhibits your true potential. What is it you desire_?"

Desire? Gentiana searches deep, moving past the logic, past the faint whispers of Shiva's denial, into the heart of a messenger who has only ever cared for the Oracle she watched over. "I… am a messenger, one who serves, who follows and guides. One such as myself has learned that desire is simply not allowed." Not allowed… But felt regardless, seeping into her very being until she can no longer ignore it.

" _But of course_ ," Garuda muses. " _If you tell yourself the same lie, you will eventually see it as truth. Do not fall into that trap. What is duty but an excuse, and what is desire but an escape? You are Gentiana before you are Shiva. Look inside yourself and seek an answer that only you can find_."

Gentiana doesn't have to look far. She already has her answer. "I want to protect the Oracle. I want to give her the life she never hoped for herself, and to give the King a chance to rule under that title. The prophecy should never have been forced onto the shoulders of innocents."

The snow in the room surrounding Gentiana has almost disappeared completely, leaving her feeling refreshed, like the first breath of spring air at the end of winter. Shiva is a but a memory now, with the fire of rebellion burning in Gentiana's blood.

" _So then what will you do? How will you protect those you care about, enough to challenge the very foundation of your life until this point?"_ Garuda sounds pleased, proud even, and something in that pride fills Gentiana with determination, to prove that she can and will save Lunafreya. Nothing will take the Oracle from her, not the prophecy, not the scourge, not the Astrals.

"I will awaken the other messengers," Gentiana says.


End file.
